Hitherto, a chemisorption monomolecular film is generally produced by a method comprising the steps of immersing a base material in a chemisorption solution prepared by dissolving chemisorption materials in a solvent, thereby reacting the surface of the base material and the chemisorption materials in the chemisorption solution for a predetermined time, and then washing and removing unnecessary chemisorption materials by using an inorganic solvent.
For example, a chemisorption solution was prepared by dissolving a silane-based surfactant comprising a linear hydrocarbon group and Si ("chemisorption material" or "chemisorption compound" also will be used hereinafter) in a nonaqueous solvent at a concentration of about 1 weight %. Thereafter, a base material is immersed in the chemisorption solution to cause a chemisorption reaction in the chemisorption solution for a predetermined time, then the base material is taken out from the chemisorption solution, and excess chemisorption materials attached to the surface of the base material are removed by rinsing with a nonaqueous organic solvent. Thus, a chemisorption monomolecular film can be obtained. Furthermore, in order to align molecules constituting the chemisorption monomolecular film, the washing solution was drained off while orienting the base material in a predetermined orientation in accordance with the alignment orientation.
However, in the conventional method for producing a chemisorption monomolecular film, a base material is immersed in a nonaqueous organic solvent for washing to wash the surface of the base material. Consequently, the washing solution is much deteriorated so much and the efficiency is bad. Furthermore, since the drain-off of the washing solution is carried out only once when the base material is taken out from the washing solution after washing, the alignment treatment also is carried out only once by this drain-off treatment. Therefore, the alignment of molecules constituting the monomolecular film is not so good.
Furthermore, in the case where a chemisorption monomolecular film having an alignment property is produced as a liquid crystal alignment film, as the conventional method, a so-called rubbing method is employed. The conventional rubbing method comprises the steps of forming a film by rotary-coating a solution comprising an organic solvent such as polyvinyl alcohol or polyimide, and then rubbing the film with a felt cloth, etc. However, there is a problem that the obtained liquid crystal aligned film is poor in uniformity in surface step portions or for a large area panel (such as a 14 inch display). Moreover, due to rubbing treatment, defects are generated in thin film transistors (TFTs), and debris generated by rubbing causes defects in display. Furthermore, such a rubbing method is not convenient for producing the so-called multi-domain liquid crystal display apparatus having a plurality of sections having different alignment directions of liquid crystal in pixels.